Tight or wide crop on vacation photos

So this summer my family and I did a little southwest tour. We started and ended in Vegas. We visited the Hoover dam, Rt 66, Grand Canyon, Sedonia and anything interesting along our drive.

I shot well over 1000 photos. I did a quick edit and posted those to FaceBook but I have not gone through them for a final edit. This will included a culling of shots and then editing the 50-100 “keepers”.

The image at the top is one of the first keeper edits done. The editing for this one was pretty simple. The biggest thing that bothered my from the photo as shot was the power lines that run right through the sign.

The photo is not perfect… there are things growing out of heads but with the wires cleaned up I am happy with the photo. Its a busy location and sometimes you just have to live with what you get.

As I am going through the photos I am reminded that I always took at least two photos at a location. We stopped all over the place… anytime I saw something interesting I pulled the kids out and snapped a couple of photos… Clark Griswold would approve but my kids we ready to kill me.

I tried to switch the crop up between shots. When you only have a couple of seconds to setup and take a shot getting multiple crops at a single location is critical. What looks good initially does not always work.

My first example is this huge green head on Rt66, Giganticus Headicus. When I first saw this I thought tight crop

But after looking back at my photos I really prefer this wide shot that shows the whole area.

I feel the wider crop here shows more of the area and in this case helps. I would have never noticed the name of the motel had I not included it, the Kozy corner trailer park.

I little before this we had stopped for lunch here

This time the wide shot seems busy and includes distractions.

After this once and a lifetime family trip shooting over 1,000 photos (not including time-lapse which totaled around 15,000 photos alone) I am glad that I shot at least two photos varying the crop. When you only have a couple of seconds before your family revolts you take what you can get.

These are not the final edits but they are close. I am planning on using some of the final edits over the coming weeks if I have a no new photos. This week work was busy and the weather not the greatest. Hopefully this weekend and next week are nicer… and fall is around the corner 🙂

All these photos were shot with my Sony A77.